After highly enjoying the original Lost Planet, I was expecting good things for the follow up. Even the demo they released was fun, however Lost Planet 2 is one of the worst games I've played all year. Poor controls, a terrible storyline and camera angles that get you killed more often then not make Lost Planet 2 a downright frustrating and bad game.

The only thing that I thought this game had going for itself was the graphics and even at times they really weren't anything special. I must admit, the jungle worlds, deserts and other environments do look very good and polished. It's too bad all of the other elements in the game bring it down.

The one thing I enjoyed about the first Lost Planet was the story. While nothing unique it did have one and it worked. I can honestly say I have no idea what the story in Lost Planet 2 was (if there was one) except that there were some guys who were trying to kill the Over G akrid and possibly save the planet, but that's about it. At one point they took over some big cannon but I have no idea why or what for really.

Getting into a single player game/campaign also seemed a lot more difficult then it should be. Instead of simply going to Single Player or Resume Campaign you had to traverse through multiple menu systems, select levels, maps, missions, etc. Way to much. In fact their whole, chapters, missions, episodes setup was a complete disaster. Basically each episode has chapters and each chapter has missions, confused yet?! You can't save the game between missions either, so prepare to be sitting down for a while (or to leave your Xbox on pause).

Controls in the game were also confusing. It felt like the 'B' button was used 80% of the time, running, melee, as an action button, etc. At time I found myself throwing grenades or shooting my grapple onto things or bashing the data points because of the confusing control scheme.

This is one game I would probably just avoid all together. You're not missing out on anything and you'll save yourself the $60. It's really to bad because Capcom did well, in my opinion, on the first Lost Planet. Everything the first game had going for it was swiftly removed from the second game. I really hope if they decide to develop a third in the series that they review these points and refine them or make major changes if necessary. Even having had a decent storyline would have made Lost Planet 2 much better. While I haven't played multi-player or co-op mode on single player, I am not sure if they would make a difference at this point. This game has to many fundamental flaws to be anything more then a one or two night rental. Sorry Capcom, you're going to have to try harder.